Wednesday, June 1, 2011

HDNet to air preliminary card bouts for Strikeforce "Overeem vs. Werdum" in June

By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

Scott Coker spoke to the media on Saturday to announce a couple of items for upcoming events, including confirmation of a 220 lb. catchweight fight between Dan Henderson and Fedor Emelianenko.

In addition to confirming that bout, Coker - who has been reestablished with the title of Strikeforce CEO - confirmed previous reports that the Challengers series events will be relocated to a new home at The Pearl at the Palms Casino in Las Vegas.

However, one of the bigger news items is the announcement that the June 18 event from the American Airlines Center in Dallas, Texas, will have all five of the preliminary card bouts broadcast live on HDNet prior to the Showtime broadcast.

It's the second time Strikeforce will has aired fights on HDNet, having had a couple of preliminary card fights air in February for the first event in the Strikeforce Heavyweight World Grand Prix.

The night's main card is headlined by the Grand Prix fight between Alistair Overeem and Fabricio Werdum.

Penick's Analysis: With how deep they were booking this event this news comes as no surprise. With Zuffa now in control of the organization, we're likely to see a lot more fights on these events as a whole that are booked by the organization, instead of having local promoters help in booking the undercard fights as they've done in the past. Whether it was with Facebook or HDNet, these fights were going to be seen. This is a great development for the fighters under contract with Strikeforce, as this will open up a lot more slots for Strikeforce to book and will allow more fighters to get fights a lot more often.